Attitude can change quickly

December 9, 2010

“It will never happen to me.” That's why I talk on my cell phone while driving, don't play the lottery, and seldom wear sunscreen. Because based on my theory, it's always the other guy that rear ends someone because he lacks the concentration necessary to talk and drive at the same time. It's always some lady from a town I never heard of that wins $185 million. And it's always some poor schlub with plain old bad luck that develops skin cancer.

Thinking “it will never happen to me” has worked out pretty well for me. Now there have been a few bumps in the road along the way (mostly during my teenage years) but nothing that really set me back or drastically changed my view on life.

So naturally I thought my family and I had made it through the “Great Recession” unscathed. You know, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Man, was I tired of hearing that slogan. In fact, over the past couple years my wife and I discussed how we hadn't really felt its impact.

This changed about a month ago when I was notified that my position was being eliminated. It's not like hearing “you're fired,” but it still stings a little. It's strange, but it wasn't so much about being without a job for the first time in my adult life, as it was about watching the holes being shot through my “it will never happen to me” theory.

I have since abandoned “it will never happen to me” and hit the old Internet machine in search of a new job/career and new life theory. But in the meantime, I'll still talk and drive, I may have to start playing the lottery, and it's too darn cold to think about sunscreen.